Seeker In Crisis
by LittleMewLugia
Summary: What would happen if Starscream lost his wingbrothers? How would he react? How would he cope - or otherwise? What if, in this state, he runs into Sam?
1. Chapter 1

Seeker In Crisis.

Summary: What would happen if Starscream lost his wingbrothers? How would he react? How would he cope - or otherwise? What if, in this state, he ran into Sam?

Rating: Probably T, but M for safety.

Disclaimer: Transformers and all named characters within belong to Hasbro and Dreamworks/Paramount. Many of the speculations within come from the realm of fanon…

Warning: Character deaths.

A/N: This bunny kindly donated by Sharam on . Thank you for such a wonderful idea.

Seeker In Crisis.

Chapter One: Starscream's Loss.

Starscream went straight from second-stage recharge to full wakefulness as a wave of terror hit him through the trine-bond. He sat up, wildly looking about for danger before realising it was not danger to himself, but to either Thundercracker or Skywarp, both many light-years away, that he was feeling.

He knew his wingbrothers were en-route to the mudball he was currently staying on, he had received communications to that effect, but also knew they were far distant.

He gasped as he received two more jolts of fear down his bond, and realised that wherever they were, both Thundercracker and Skywarp were in some great danger. He was about ready to shoot off and find them, although logic told him that by the time he got there, it was likely to be over, but logic had checked out a few seconds before.

As he had just decided to go anyway, he arched and screamed as a far bigger jolt of fear came down the bond, fear, and pain, and something more. He could feel something of his trine-mate's feelings and sensations, and he collapsed in a screaming, twitching heap as he felt the flames that had engulfed Thundercracker as phantoms on his own sensors.

He had barely begun to come back to himself when a pulse of alarm from Skywarp caught him up, and as he felt the bond between himself and Thundercracker shatter as the latter's Spark died, he was caught up in the sensations Skywarp was enduring, his body twisting under imaginary stresses just as Skywarp's body was twisting under all-too real ones.

Starscream was barely aware of his own surroundings in the cold, damp, and empty hangar on the abandoned airfield he had hidden in as his mind joined Skywarp's along the bond. He pressed against the floor of the hangar, screeching and keening, as he felt Skywarp's upper and lower body twist in opposite directions, moaned in pain and grief as he felt his wingbrother's gorgeous wings tear and shred under the pressure.

When Skywarp's Spark finally guttered and died, the shock sent Starscream straight into recharge.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

When Starscream finished rebooting, he moaned at the memory of the feelings and the pain, whimpered as he remembered feeling the Sparks of his wingbrothers dying, pulling at his own Spark.

Tentatively he reached out for the familiar presence of his wingbrothers in the trine-bond, and was brought up short as he felt nothing.

He had hoped that at least one of his impressions might be mistaken, that maybe one of them still lived, but he could not even find the bonds, let alone those who were connected to him by them. Even at a distance, he had always had an impression that they were there, not neccessarily close enough to communicate, but just there, comforting presences he could reach out to before he went into recharge, a comfort merely by their presence, but now, there was nothing. All that was left of the bond and the wingbrothers he had shared it with was a distant memory. He was now alone.

Starscream curled into a tight little ball, and keened in fear and pain.


	2. Chapter 2

Seeker In Crisis.

Chapter Two: Trying To Cope With The Loss.

What felt like a very long time later, Starscream uncurled from his quivering ball and looked up at the blank metal wall ahead of him. The emptiness caused by the absence of his trine-bond was like a physical ache in his processors, the pain of the absence as if his own Spark had been torn by the loss of the other two Sparks.

He huffed at how unscientific that conclusion was, but was forced to admit that as unscientific as the sentiment was, it felt emotionally accurate.

Straightening, he stood and headed for the exit. There was nobody else he could talk to, not even a grounder who could not understand how he felt, for he and Barricade had finally engaged in a major verbal showdown that had almost reached duel status. Luckily, Barricade had finally backed down, but delivered the ultimate vote of no-confidence by roaring away three days ago leaving behind nothing but a strong smell of burned ego. Starscream had not heard from him since, and did not expect him to contact him any time soon if at all.

"A flight," he murmured. "I'll lose myself in the sky, maybe then I can forget for a time." The severity of the Spark-ache he was enduring gave him reason to doubt but he shoved the doubt aside brutally. Surely something could help ease the ache he felt, and flying was the one thing he could hope to give him relief.

He reached the open air and threw himself into it with a cry composed part of relief and part of pain. He flew upwards, as high as he could without entering the thin air at the very edge of the Earth's atmosphere, then cut his engines, pulling in his limbs to make himself more aerodynamic and pointing his head and shoulders down as he let himself drop into freefall. Speed was his greatest thrill, speed combined with danger, and this he hoped would take his mind off the loss of his trine.

As he fell, he considered speeding up his descent by using his engines, but decided against it. Fuel was short enough without wasting it on achieving a velocity that at this height, gravity alone would soon facilitate. As he continued to plummet, he felt his plating first begin to heat up, then to start distorting, and finally he felt the radar-absorbent material begin to bubble and flake as the friction of his descent through the atmosphere took its toll on his disguise mode.

As he dropped faster and faster, damage report warnings began to flash in his systems. These were soon joined by another warning signal, one that warned that if he did not pull himself out of the fall in the next few seconds, he would impact with the planet surface at a velocity that he would be unlikely to survive.

For a second he entertained the thought of allowing himself to crash, the ultimate end to the wrenching pain of his loss, but ultimately his survival instinct won out. He pulled out of the dive, swooping low over the terrain, then angling upwards towards a large dark cloud that promised rain, and maybe a storm. As he flew into it, the moist water vapour that came into contact with his hot plating sizzled briefly before turning into steam. Flying deeper into the clouds, the Seeker sighed as the cooling vapour cooled his hide back down to near-normal levels.

Burned, radar-absorbent covering gone in most places, blackened and singed, and with half his exoskeleton's surface sensors burned out, Starscream knew he was in a very bad way. However the pain from his abused systems was still as nothing to the pain of the loss of his trine-mates, and as lightning flashed within and thunder sounded from deep inside the towering black cloud he was flying in, he made a decision. Perhaps riding the front of a brewing storm would help him forget for a time what he had had and was now lost?

He dropped down out of the cloud briefly to get his bearings, then headed back in to head for the front and top of the thunderhead, unaware that he had been observed.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

"Mirage, come and look at this," Ratchet called to the surveillance operative who was manning the communication console in the control room of the Autobot Base. "Something's heating up in the atmosphere, but the orbital detection satellites have not recorded any entry by anything from space."

Ratchet was on observational duty in the Autobot Base, as since Mission City, there had been few Decepticon attacks and even fewer Autobot injuries to see to. This, combined with the arrival of another medic, First Aid, meant that Ratchet could be included on the duty roster of the non-medical Base duties.

As Ratchet hit a button to zoom in on the descending object, Mirage turned a few dials and then shook his head.

"I'm listening on all frequencies, but who or whatever it is isn't broadcasting a thing," Mirage told him. "I'll keep monitoring, but I doubt I'll find anything."

Ratchet nodded, only half-concentrating as he adjusted the zoom and switched between ground cameras and atmospheric satellites. Suddenly he stopped as one of the images resolved into a familiar figure.

"It's Starscream," he said in surprise. "We haven't heard much from him since Mission City."

"What's he doing?" asked Mirage, momentarily distracted from his own readouts by the sight of the falling Seeker. "Is he damaged?"

"He must be," Ratchet said, standing and comming for Cliffjumper to come and relieve him. "I'll head out once we get a fix on his estimated landing co-ordinates, although at that speed I don't think he'll survive."

As Ratchet asked the computer to plot the Seeker's course and pinpoint a landing area, he noticed the trajectory alter. The Seeker was pulling up, still flying dangerously low, but heading upwards. Ratchet was alarmed to notice that the flier appeared to be in a bad state, blackened, peeling, armour bare and a few wires sparking, but as he tried to zoom in on the slightly unstable form, it angled up into a cloud and he swore as he lost sight of him.

"Here, let me," said Mirage as Cliffjumper came in. He waved the red scout to his own communications console as he slid into the seat recently vacated by Ratchet. He adjusted a few controls and then Ratchet could see an orange-red shape against blue and black tones.

"Infrared," Mirage said. "That is your Seeker, the surrounds are the cloud." At that moment the screen was brightened by a blue-white jagged fork that took time to clear.

"What was that?" Ratchet asked.

"Lightning," Mirage said. "Your Seeker is flying into the heart of a thunderstorm."

"He's hardly _my_ Seeker," muttered the green medic worriedly. "However, if that glimpse I got of him shows even half of the damage he appears to have sustained, he could end up becoming my patient. Usually our kind can take a lightning strike or three before sustaining damage, but if he's already damaged…"

He let his sentence trail off, feeling no need to continue as he anxiously continued watching the screen. He brought his head up as he noticed the rapidly-cooling image of Starscream dropping down within the cloud. Anticipating him, Mirage split the screen so he could see the infra-red and the normal view simultaneously.

"Can you record this?" asked Ratchet. Pressing a button, Mirage nodded. Ratchet watched as Starscream dropped out of the cloud, looked about him, and then shot back inside it.

"Can you play that back frame by frame?" Ratchet asked. Nodding, Mirage complied.

Zooming in, and occasionally pausing certain images, Ratchet looked at the frames of the burned, damaged Starscream with growing concern.

Something was wrong somewhere, but without more information, he could not work out what that something was.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Starscream headed straight up, his destination clear in his head. He burst out of the top of the cloud and felt his wings take the sudden strain of the blowing, turbulent winds that tried to push him back and down. The rain he had flown through was already freezing on his hide, but in certain places he barely felt it.

He knew that the numb patches on his hide, nothing to do with the icy sheen of frozen rain, were not good, but he didn't care. He pitted his body against the natural forces created by this planet's atmosphere, then stopped fighting for a time, allowing the cold air to carry him back down into the cloud's heart before fighting, flying back up towards the top of the cloud again.

Lightning flashed, at first distant, on the edge of the cloud, but then closer, then closer again. Starscream laughed, sure he could out-fly any bolt of electricity.

Then the closest fork of all jumped from the cloud to skewer first his left wing, then his body. His systems went dark, and as he lost consciousness, he wondered why this strike had damaged him when he had taken much worse on other planets without ill effect.

Offline and out of control, he began to fall.


	3. Chapter 3

Seeker In Crisis.

Chapter Three: The Descent Of Starscream.

A/N: 1 orn is equivalent to thirteen human days. 1 joor is roughly 6.5 human hours. The Treaty of Iacon is my own invention.

"Ratchet, he's been struck!" Mirage said unnecessarily. When he received no reply, he turned to see Ratchet disappearing out of the control room doors at a run. Mirage turned back to the screen and got the computer to work out roughly where the Seeker would land. When the computer gave him the figures, he databurst them to Ratchet, then Cliffjumper put a confused com from Ironhide, who was on gate-duty, on speaker for the benefit of all in the room,

"Gate to control. Ratchet has just gone roaring out in alt-form, at a speed I am sure is breaking the speed limit. He gave me no explanation, just let loose with a stream of invective when the gates were too slow to open for his liking."

Mirage blew air through his vents.

"We just saw Starscream in a bad state getting hit by lightning," he explained. "I think Ratchet's decided he's a patient. You _know_ how wound up Ratchet gets when he's worried about a patient."

Ironhide databurst a sound of irritation.

"Yeah, right, we might _all_ regret his repairs next time we end up in a battle against Starscream. If I were Ratchet I'd solve all of Starscream's injury problems _permanently_, with a pulse blast to the spark-chamber, and solve his problems and one of ours all in one go."

Mirage smiled but made no comment: he wasn't about to get in an ethics debate with Ironhide, particularly when he knew that Ironhide, for all his bluster, would never carry out his threat. Mirage knew that to blast an enemy when they were injured, down, and unable to put up any sort of defence went against the big Weapons Specialist's honour-code. Shooting an enemy dead in a battle was one thing: shooting them when they were injured out of battle was a different matter altogether.

Turning back to the screen, Mirage continued to check things.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOooOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Ratchet reached the area Mirage had helpfully given him the co-ordinates for and was relieved to see it was relatively remote, there appeared to be no humans in sight. Scanning the area he detected a large metallic mass and a Spark-signature and as he had many times before, aired a silent thanks to whatever powers might exist that the alt he had scanned was built for offroad conditions. His tyres gripped the rough ground and he moved forwards, quickly reaching the crash site. Closer to the area of impact, he converted to his robot mode and climbed down to where the twisted body of the Decepticon lay.

Another quick scan confirmed that Starscream's Spark was still alight: although damaged and mostly offline, his form had survived the impact far more than if he really had been an Earth jet. He carried out a deeper scan as he also looked at the damaged Seeker with a practiced optic. Had he been a human, the results of the scan would have caused him to wince: Starscream wouldn't be going anywhere very soon, at least not until Ratchet had carried out several days' worth of repairs.

Stooping, Ratchet made a few spot-welds to ensure that the Seeker would not fall apart anytime soon as he moved him, then dragged him near a road, making sure the Seeker was hidden by scrub and trees from the roadside. He folded down into alt beside him, and sent a com to the Base.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOooOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

"Incoming transmission," Cliffjumper said. "It's from Ratchet."

"Put it on speaker," said Optimus, who had come to the control room to check that everything was fine and had been appraised of the situation by Mirage. He wandered over to the communications station, standing behind Cliffjumper.

"Ratchet to Base, are you reading me?" came Ratchet's amplified voice.

"This is Base, Ratchet, Optimus Prime here. Go ahead."

"Optimus, I need to bring a large patient back to the base," Ratchet replied. "Could you and Ironhide come to help? Bring your flatbed, lots of rope, and several large tarpaulins. We need to wrap him up to keep him hidden and secure him to your flatbed to bring him back to the medical bay. He's in a very bad way, he needs a lot more than I can do for him in the field, so I'm bringing him in for repairs under Protocol Five of the Treaty of Iacon."

"Base to Ratchet, send us the co-ordinates and we'll be on our way," Optimus replied. "We'll bring Hound to camouflage us while we get him ready for transport." He sent a com to Red Alert to replace Ironhide at the gate as he told Ironhide that Ratchet had requested him.

Ten minutes later, the odd assortment of an eighteen-wheeler truck, a pickup, and an army jeep rolled out of the gates of the Autobot Base.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOooOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

When Ratchet saw them arrive, he was relieved. He had filled up the time while waiting by making many more detailed scans of Starscream, and now he was just eager to get him back to the Base and begin the substantial repairs he would need to carry out to get the Decepticon functioning and airworthy again.

Hound arrived first, using his holoform to unload several orange cones and two ROAD CLOSED signs, putting them out either side of Optimus, who was pretending he'd had an accident, he and his flatbed stretched diagonally across the road. Hound then took some images of the local countryside and used them to conceal Ratchet as he changed into robot form, wrapped Starscream in tarpaulins and secured them with lots of rope. He and Ironhide parked behind a set of cones each and created police-officer holograms to turn back the traffic.

Hound then created a hologram of Optimus' truck form to cover the real thing as he evened himself up, and then Ironhide ducked behind the holo long enough to change into robot form, help Ratchet load the tarpaulin-clad Seeker onto the flatbed and tie him on securely, and go back to alt. Hound was then able to disengage his holograms, and he and Ironhide's holoforms packed up the cones and signs. Ironhide took point in front of Optimus, who was followed by Ratchet and then Hound. Although they were all alert for any possible Decepticon activity, they arrived back at the Base without incident, where the tarpaulin-wrapped Seeker was quickly taken to the medical bay.

Ratchet consulted with First Aid, who immediately volunteered to help, for which Ratchet was grateful. The medic could see that if he were working alone, it would take a good orn to get Starscream back the way he should be. Contacting SecDef Keller, he asked for and was granted a suitable amount of the radar-absorbent material and paint they would need.

Although Ratchet didn't voice the thought, he wondered just how and why Starscream had ended up in such a state in the first place.

Pushing the thought to the back of his mind, he nodded to First Aid, and set to work, beginning to make the first of a long series of repairs.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOooOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Ten Days Later.

When Starscream opened his optics, for a moment he wondered why he was on his back, where he was, and what was going on. Then the memory of the deaths of his trinemates and the subsequent events returned to him all in a rush, and he tensed and screamed.

A blur of green moved in, and as hands gently pushed down on his shoulders, his optics focused and he saw the green figure was the Autobot medic, Ratchet.

"It's okay, Starscream, you're in my medbay. Are you in pain?" Ratchet asked in concern, for that scream had sounded agonised.

"Not in a way you can relieve, medic." Starscream said, as he lifted his arms and then reached up to touch his own chest and wings. He was gratified and surprised to find that he was, physically, back in shape. The burned-out sensors had all been replaced, and all the radar-absorbent material he'd lost had been replaced.

He sat up, and as he checked out his legs and canopy Ratchet moved away, returning with a cube of energon, which he pushed into the Seeker's hands.

"Thank you." Starscream said as he drank the energon, which had an unusual but not unpleasant aftertaste.

"Starscream, when we found you, you were in a very bad way," Ratchet told him. "All indications suggest you received all this damage in one or maybe two incidents. What happened? Why are you being so careless with your body? You were lucky I found you."

"That is nobody's business but my own, medic." Starscream said. "I am grateful for your repairs but don't push it. It is something no mere grounder could understand."

Ratchet would have liked to have continued the conversation, but the Seeker was in serious need of recharge and Ratchet did not want to risk Starscream walking out on him before he'd recharged and given him a final check and refuelled him. If necessary, he'd take up the issue again when Starscream had rested, perhaps a recharge might improve his temper, although Ratchet held out little hope for that.

"Okay, if you follow me, I'll take you to our biggest recharge unit, which should be able to accommodate you." he said, biting back a retort. He reflected, not for the first time, that despite changing his specialty to repairs from negotiation prior to the war, his medic work often required much of his negotiation skills with certain patients. With some, a glower and a muttered curse quieted them and made them comply, but some others required more tact.

He settled Starscream into the recharge berth, setting a three-joor recharge cycle, then went off to another, for after two nineteen-joor shifts with a two-joor recharge break in-between, he was exhausted.

Setting his own dial for two joors, he lay down and slipped immediately into recharge.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOooOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

"Starscream. Starscream."

The voices, barely a whisper, jolted him out of his recharge when he was barely a joor in, for the voices were those of his wingbrothers.

"Skywarp? TC?" he cried out loud, reaching out for the trine-bond to find them. "You survived!"

His quest for his trine-bond only found that yawning black emptiness he had found before, as the voice of Thundercracker confirmed his worst fears.

"No, we didn't survive. We're dead, floating in the cold of space. It's your fault, you let us down, we're dead and it's your fault."

He whimpered.

"No, it's not me, I wasn't anywhere near you, you can't blame me for what happened, I wasn't even there!"

"Exactly!" came the accusing voice of Skywarp. "You weren't there to help, you didn't come to our aid. As a trine we're meant to help each other and you weren't even there. You didn't even _try _to come to our aid!"

"I was too far away, you were dead before I could even get out of the room!" he said.

"You went on ahead, left us to follow," Thundercracker's voice said in his head again. "We did, we followed and we died, because you had to be first. You went on ahead and left us to die!"

"No!" whimpered Starscream, clawing at his own face in distress. "I came to prepare a Base for you, to prepare the way for your arrival."

"We could have come together, together we would have survived." Skywarp's voice said. "Do you remember the warmth of our trine-bond? Do you remember how we could reach out to comfort each other in times of need?" Skywarp's voice was tinged with a malice Starscream had never heard directed at him before. "Remember it, Starscream, and know you will never feel it again, and that it is all your fault!"

Starscream screamed again, and although it filled the recharge chamber it did not quite drown out the voices.

"Skywarp, TC, please! Please don't do this to me, I loved you, I loved you more than I ever admitted. Please, don't blame me, it wasn't my fault!"

"But it was." Thundercracker said.

"And you should pay for it." Skywarp's voice told him.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOooOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Hound was startled from his inventory of their remaining supplies that Ratchet had asked him to carry out by a scream. He looked up, moving through to the recharge room, where he saw Starscream half-sitting up in the recharge chamber. He appeared to be talking, although Hound couldn't hear the words. Neither could he see anyone who Starscream could be talking to.

He saw Starscream open a hand and hold it out as if in entreaty to someone, heard the tone rise pleadingly, although he still could not hear the words. He supposed Starscream could be on the com to somebody, but Hound had a feeling this was not the case.

Moving to the recharge chamber containing Ratchet, Hound turned the dial to zero. As Ratchet stirred and unshuttered slightly bleary optics, Hound lifted the recharge canopy.

"Ratchet, I'm sorry to cut short your recharge, but something's up with Starscream," Hound explained. "He seems to be talking to himself."

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOooOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

He could see them in his head now as well as hear them, and it was not a comforting sight.

Thundercracker's blackened, semi-melted form turned its head to look at him, red and orange light like flames from the depths of the Pit flickering in the optics, remnants of the fire that had consumed him.

"You betrayed us, betrayed our bond." he said. Starscream looked from him to where the upper body of Skywarp hovered, seeming to defy gravity, one arm missing, the other an unrecognisable mess, the shreds of once-proud wings clinging to his dented and battered back. His optics were as cold and dead as the body.

"You dishonour the bond we had," he said. "That you should live when we died is the greatest dishonour you commit. You should have died when you crashed. You must right that wrong, only then will you gain any peace, only then can we all gain peace."

"A trine should be together. It is not right that we are separate. Do the right thing, Starscream." Thundercracker said. "Join us in death, bring us together again, then you can finally find the peace you crave."

"Yes." Starscream whispered. "TC, Warp, I will. I will join you."

He received no reply, for with those words, the voices and images left him.


	4. Chapter 4

Seeker In Crisis.

Chapter Four: Starscream's Escape.

A/N: Thanks to KDZeal for the idea that Seekers instinctively need to form a trine or triad.

A moment later, Starscream saw Ratchet approaching his recharge unit and pull open the clear canopy.

"Starscream, are you okay?" Ratchet asked, reaching out to Starscream's face.

"Yes, yes I'm fine." Starscream said calmly, pleased to notice that his voice didn't shake and in fact reflected the calm that had replaced the panic when he had decided to join his wingbrothers in death. The pain was still there, unabated, but now he could comfort himself with the thought that soon his death would end that pain.

"Like slag you're fine!" the medic said gently, touching his fingers to the Seeker's face and bringing them back slick with pink energon. "You've burst the small lines feeding your optics, only a severe cranial or optic impact, or stress enough to put up the pressure would cause this, and your cranial unit looks undamaged, as do the optics themselves. What stress is so great that this will happen with new lines, Starscream? Something's happened. What is it?"

Starscream could see by the expression on Ratchet's face that this time the medic would not leave unless he explained himself. The Seeker found the medic's concern touching, it was seldom that any but his wingbrothers had cared for his well-being. He closed his optics and huffed a long blast of air through his vents. He felt a soft cloth wiping at the energon he had not even noticed trickling from his optics and kept still, with optics shuttered, until the wiping stopped.

He opened his optics to find Ratchet, cloth still in hand, looking at him. Starscream inclined his head, acknowledging the unspoken expectation.

"My wingbrothers are both dead." he said. "I felt them die."

Starscream saw Ratchet flinch: as a medic he would know about trine-bonds, it was one of the better-known aspects of Seekers, even many non-medical people knew of them. As a medic, Ratchet would know that the breaking of such a strong bond would cause pain, the severance of two causing the agony he felt. Ratchet moved over to Starscream and leaned against him, and Starscream did feel a slight comfort from the contact.

"You go back to your recharge, Starscream." he said soothingly. "I think I may have a solution to your problem. When you wake, I will have found two people willing to bond with you, a short-term solution possibly, but you should feel better."

He pushed Starscream back into the recharge unit, the Seeker did not resist. As Ratchet pulled the canopy down enough to let it fall into place, he did not notice Starscream slipping a digit between the canopy edge and the unit, keeping it from closing. He didn't notice it had not closed completely, but turned, pulling Hound away as the Seeker's optics closed.

"Keep an optic on him, Hound, after a shock like that he should not be that calm. I'll be back soon, I need to make some enquiries."

As Ratchet walked out, comming for any Autobots who could use jet packs, or knew they tolerated flight well, he fretted that somewhere he was missing something.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Starscream listened to Ratchet's footsteps receding, thinking about what the medic had proposed. His lip curled in a sneer.

It was fairly common practice if a trine had lost a member to take on a new one to salve the injury of the loss and fill the void caused by their absence. In the absence of other Seekers, it was even acceptable to form a trine with two grounders, such was the urge to be one of three, and such mismatched trines could and did exist.

Starscream was not worried so much about potentially trineing with Autobots, he was sure a couple of the members of the growing ranks of Autobots would be compatible, and he might even grow to like them. He could think of a few he wouldn't necessarily object to, but they all lacked one necessary prerequisite, and that was wings.

Starscream had met his wing brothers early on, he had never been forced to trine with non-fliers, but had met some of those that had. All had stated that it was unfulfilling to fly as a duo, or alone, and although carrying a non-flying trinemate was a temporary solution, it was not an ideal one. No, Starscream could stomach trineing with Autobots, but he would not be pushed into a bond with a pair of _grounders_, and he knew that is what he would end up with, for he knew that so far, none of the few Autobot fliers had arrived.

He cracked open his optic shutters a little, and was pleased to see that Hound had assumed he was sleeping and had gone back to his inventorying, though he still stole the occasional glance back his way. Starscream waited until Hound had turned back to his work before silently swinging the canopy open and sitting up. Pausing to switch his arm blasters down to stun, he aimed at Hound and fired.

Starscream was up on his feet before the green Autobot had hit the floor and he picked up Hound, holding him with one arm against his chest, pointing his blaster at the hologram expert's dataports with the other, before heading out of the medical bay and up the corridor towards the exit.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Ratchet had spoken with each of the Autobots who had answered to his com, for he had realised that just getting any two Autobots to bond with the Seeker could be a disaster, He needed two Autobots who could get on with each other, who would be happy to bond with each other as well as with Starscream, and whose temperaments would not clash. In fact his ideal pair would be two as close in temperament and attitude to Thundercracker and Skywarp as he could find, as well as two who could take flight and preferably knew how to operate (or could learn to operate) a jet-pack.

A few he had rejected straight away: Optimus was too big, had too many responsibilities already, and had a pre-existing bond with his femme, which could destabilise the unusual trine. Mirage, although almost Seeker-framed, and taking flight well, didn't know one end of a jet-pack from the other and was so unwilling to offend he'd likely end up being figuratively walked all over by Starscream. Cliffjumper, although he was able to handle a jet pack, was the opposite: so suspicious and argumentative that putting him with the Seeker would be a disaster. He had already told Bumblebee not to even come to the base. The scout could also handle a jet-pack but had a responsibility to guard Sam.

Finally he had found the nearest thing to a perfect pair: willing to bond with Starscream, different but balancing each other out nicely. One was easy-going, like Thundercracker, the other a trickster like Skywarp. They were each already bonded, but with each other and nobody else, so there was no problem there. He smiled with amusement at the irony: who could have seen the Twins trineing with the Decepticon Seeker?

He was feeling rather smug as he headed to the medical bay with the pair when Ironhide contacted him by com.

"Ratchet, Starscream has just left, I'm sorry, I couldn't stop him."

"What do you mean, _left?" _Ratchet asked, his elation vanishing. "What about the force-field? I thought that was up at all times? How could he just _leave?"_

"He had Hound with him, stunned by the looks of things, and he said if I called anyone, or didn't lower the force-field within five seconds, he'd shoot Hound on full power," Ironhide explained. "I wasn't about to risk calling his bluff, he looked like he meant it, so I did as he asked."

Ratchet frowned.

"What happened to Hound? Did Starscream take him with him?"

"No, the moment the force-field dropped he dropped Hound, ran, and launched off. Hound's out here, and as I said I think he's just stunned," Ironhide told him.

"Ironhide, tell Mirage to get on the scanners, if he sees so much as that Seeker's wingtip, I want to know about it," Ratchet replied.

Ratchet turned to the Twins.

"Okay, Starscream's not here at the moment but if we find him, you need to be ready at a moment's notice to drop whatever you're doing. I'll have a word with Prowl and get him to let you off your duties." He frowned a little as Sunstreaker and Sideswipe hi-fived each other. "Don't go more than fifteen minutes away from the Base, in fact I'd prefer you don't leave the Base all if you can tolerate that." he said.

"Come on, Bro, there's a couple of cubes of energon in the rec-room with our names on them. We'll see if we can stick around the Base, Ratchet," said Sideswipe.

Sunstreaker, Ratchet noticed, was already disappearing into the rec-room. Sideswipe nodded to Ratchet and followed his brother.

Ratchet huffed through his vents, and told Ironhide he was on his way as well as informing Prowl that the Twins were free of their duties for medical purposes until further notice. He cut Prowl off when he protested that he'd have to re-do the rotas, and headed out to see to Hound.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

The voices were back, but Starscream held them at bay as he sat, hidden in his deserted hangar, and meticulously dug one claw into his newly-repaired hide, beginning to carve a glyph in it.

He knew his wingbrothers were right, it had been his fault they had died. He hadn't waited for them, he'd left them to follow without even considering they might run into trouble. As such, just killing himself would be too easy, too good for him. If he drew it out and punished himself first, maybe he could earn back their respect. He hoped they would understand the reason for the delay. As he had done wrong, he had to punish himself for it.

Energon welled up in the cut and Starscream bit back a cry as his new sensors registered the injury and signalled pain, but he ignored it, drawing the claw around. He finished the first glyph and moved on to the next, then carved out another, and then another. Once he had run out of room on one piece of hide, he moved on to a different surface, carving glyph after glyph into his exoskeleton. None of the glyphs spoke of nobility or sacrifice, all denoted the bearer to be dishonoured or guilty of some crime. Once he had finished, few parts of his hide were unadorned, only the parts he couldn't reach, and he had even carved some on his canopy glass, although once he had passed out from the pain for the second time, he stopped carving them there.

"Okay, TC, okay 'Warp, I'm coming!" he said out loud. "Stop shouting, what will another six breems matter, I'll be with you soon enough, I'm going now okay, just stop yelling at me!" He checked with a hand one last time, feeling the glyphs on his helm, covering his wings, his arms, his legs, even his fingers and hands and feet.

He stood, his sensors screaming at the movement, and stumbled out of the hangar, wincing as the wind blew over the glyphs. He launched himself unsteadily into the air, determined now to do as he had said and join his wingbrothers in death. As he flew upwards, ready to drop again from a vast height and this time use his thrusters to help plough himself into the ground, rather than pull up as he had before, a bright flash of movement below caught his optic.

He zoomed his optics in on the moving yellow dot, and it resolved itself into the shape of a car, a very familiar car. Dropping down a little, he zoomed in further. Yes, it was the Autobot scout Bumblebee, and his squishy friend, the Witwicky boy. The road they were on looked relatively deserted, and Starscream decided that dying could wait a little.

Those two had thwarted him too often. Perhaps he could blast them where they were, or perhaps he could catch the little squishy boy, take him with him, and they could die together, burning in the atmosphere or hitting the ground with an impact that would bury their twisted remains feet deep in the dirt of this world.

Either way, before he died, he had a score to settle.


	5. Chapter 5

Seeker In Crisis.

Chapter Five: Starscream's New Dawn.

A/N: It looks like Sanjuno's universe has filtered into this story too, albeit in a slightly diluted form…:)

For Sam Witwicky and Bumblebee, calm suddenly turned into chaos.

One moment they were driving along the road, just having gone out for the heck of it, the day being sunny and bright. All Bumblebee's windows were open, and Bumblebee's speakers were cranked up and blasting out Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" and Sam had been singing along.

Later they would reflect that maybe the volume of both the car speakers and the human were too loud. That perhaps it was why the first warning they got that things were about to get difficult was when a pair of very large Seeker feet crashed to the road in front of them, cracking the tarmac and blocking the road. Looking up through the windshield, Sam saw Starscream, strange carvings dripping viscous pink fluid covering his body, his optics glowing a hellish red, bending down towards them.

Bumblebee, his reactions faster than any human's, slammed on the brakes before they collided, and tried to turn one hundred and eighty degrees. He knew he could not outrun the Seeker if he took to the air again, but he intended to try. However, before the Autobot scout could even start moving again, a clawed hand caught him on the side, the digit-tips hooking in the open windows, and flipped him side-over-side onto the edge of the road.

Bumblebee flicked open his doors and threw Sam clear, and began to transform as he rolled. In car form he was far too vulnerable. However, as he stood, powering his cannon up and dropping his battle mask, he heard Sam cry out, and looked up in time to see Starscream's big hand scoop the human up, the fist closing on the human's fragile form.

Bumblebee almost fired then, but noticed that Starscream was not crushing the human, but lifting him up to his optic level to look at him. He also noticed the self-inflicted carvings on Starscream's hide, and knew the meanings.

"So, fleshling, now I have you in my grasp, in my power," the Seeker said, looking at the frightened human. Sam's struggles ceased as he realised they were futile against the metal fist that was currently holding him tight enough to confine, but not so tight it was crushing him.

"I-um, yeah, I guess you do." Sam said. "I guess you're kinda pissed at me, right? I mean, I'd be pissed at me if I were you." He blinked, he himself noticing the markings on Starscream's hide were actually scratched on. "What have you done to yourself? Those look like they'd kinda hurt." He touched Starscream's hand edge with a gentleness that surprised the Seeker. "I mean, scratches like that would hurt on a human, and when some punk scratched 'Bee's side with a rock, he said that hurt him. They look kinda deep." He reached out as if to touch one with his one free arm.

"Don't, Sam, energon is corrosive to humans." Bumblebee said, lowering his cannon, not wanting to do anything that might provoke Starscream into squeezing his friend. Sam didn't pull his hand back, but stopped short of touching one of the gouges.

Starscream regarded him with a look of surprise.

"That sounds almost as if you _care_, human. What does it matter to you if _I_ am injured, or in pain?"

"I do care," Sam stated. "I don't like to think of anybody in pain."

"Even an enemy, one who has tried to kill you? One who still may wish to?" Starscream asked. "Why do you care for someone who does not care for you?"

Sam shrugged, unable to put his reasons into a few simple words.

"I can't say why, I'm, not really sure of the why, I just do. I care about other people's pain. I guess it's just human."

Sam cried out as Starscream's hand abruptly tightened around him, but had barely finished his cry before the Seeker loosened his grip. Sam looked to see Bumblebee tensing, and shook his head. The clench had been painful but not tight enough to break bones: it was more of a caution or a warning than an honest attempt to harm him.

"Don't be such a speciesist," Starscream said. "Humans are not the only ones who care about others, even when such concern is illogical and even dangerous. It does not matter, we are both going to die, such concerns are not ours to worry about."

"What?" Sam asked. "I was kinda expecting you to threaten to kill _me_, but why are _you _to die? If you tell me why, I might be able to help you somehow, so you won't die." It was, Sam realised, a slender straw he grabbed at, for if Starscream was somehow terminally ill, there would be nothing he could do. It seemed Starscream thought so as well.

"_You_, help _me_? No, fleshling, there is nothing you or anyone else can do for me," Starscream told him. "All that is to be decided is the manner of your death, and the manner of mine."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked. "If the manner of your death is of your choosing, there may be a chance to avert it."

"Sam, Ratchet contacted me earlier," Bumblebee said quietly. Starscream looked at the scout but did not stop or interrupt him.

"Ratchet asked for certain mechs with certain skills, but did not explain why, only told me I could not as my job was to guard you. He said something about Starscream. Maybe the two are connected?" He looked at Starscream quizzically. "What I don't understand is this insistence and acceptance of your death. The Starscream I am familiar with from Autobot files will do almost anything to preserve his own Spark."

Starscream laughed bitterly. "What does it matter any more? You won't understand, and you will die with me or just before, so you have nobody to tell." He looked away from Bumblebee again to the human in his hand.

"My will to live left me the moment I felt my wingbrothers, Thundercracker and Skywarp, die, their Sparks snuffed out, gone from this world and from my reach forever." He noted Sam's confused but concerned expression, and nodded.

"No, I do not expect you to understand, human, what it is for a Cybertronian to lose any sort of bond-mate, you cannot know." The Seeker shuttered his optics. "Although not as strong as a mate-bond, a trine-bond is powerful, and I have lost both of my trine-members. It hurts." He unshuttered his optics, looked at Sam, and shutter-blinked briefly.

"Fleshling, why do you leak?"

"It's called 'crying'. Sam explained, using his free hand to wipe at the tears the pain in Starscream's voice had elicited. "I weep for your loss, Starscream. I have lost grandparents and friends, and that hurts badly enough. I cannot imagine what it must be like to lose somebody that close, or even two somebodies. You're right, Starscream, I cannot know what your pain is like, but I can still remember my lesser losses, and know it must hurt. You plan to kill yourself, don't you?"

"I must," Starscream said softly. "I told my wingbrothers I would. Only then can we all rest in peace. A trine should be together."

"Wouldn't your wingbrothers want you to live on and bear their memories, and speak their names so they're not forgotten?" Sam asked.

That gave Starscream pause for thought, but the moment he stopped to think of it, he heard his wingbrothers speaking again.

"You said you'd join us. Dispense with the fleshy quickly, and come into oblivion with us." Thundercracker's voice echoed loudly in his head.

"You said you would join us. Delay no longer." Skywarp said. Starscream nodded.

"Yes, yes I will, but give me a moment," he said. He looked at Sam.

"You will bear our names for us, in memory of us. Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp. You will speak them so we are not forgotten, but the trine belongs together. Seekers live in groups of three, I have no new wingmates who could help me bear this pain."

Stooping, he placed Sam's feet back on the ground.

"I give back to you your life, that of you and your Autobot friend. To him, I give my fondest memories of our trine." The Seeker's optics dimmed than flared again, and Sam saw Bumblebee's optics flare, and the scout nodded.

"Accepted, Starscream. I will be your memory-keeper and keep your memories alive. Please release Sam, and accept my condolences on your loss. My thoughts will be with you." Bumblebee's voice resonated with a sympathetic empathy. Starscream nodded.

"Vengeance will give me no satisfaction, there are others who will rejoice in killing you," Starscream said. "For now, I let you live for my own purposes, so do not ascribe any softer emotions to my reason to allow your continued existence. I leave the task of killing you to other Decepticons. A temporary reprieve only, human, do not think you are let off that lightly. You are just not worth the effort of killing. Nothing except dying is worth any effort from me any more."

With that, the Seeker uncurled his fist from around Sam and drew his hand away. At least, he tried to, but he suddenly found his hand too heavy to move, as if it were glued to the ground. Sam, too, found himself unable to move from the spot he was stood in. His ears were buzzing and his head was swimming, and then his world was blotted out by a shining light and a presence in his head.

Starscream was vainly trying to pull his hand away, but it just would not budge.

"What fleshy trickery is this?" he asked shrilly. He looked at Sam. "Release me!"

As he watched, the human abruptly went rigid, and then Starscream was aware of nothing.

It was Bumblebee who was the last to be affected. At Starscream's cry, he turned to see the Seeker struggling to stand, seemingly unable to take his hand from where he had opened it close to where Sam was standing. As he watched, Starscream's optics went dark, and he sagged to his knees. Scared the Seeker would collapse and fall on his human friend, Bumblebee moved forwards, but as his hand reached out to catch the Seeker's arm, he found himself unable to move any further.

A blue-white glow suddenly haloed Sam, jumped from Sam's rigid form to draw a glowing line about the form of Starscream, and from Starscream it spread to cover the yellow scout.

Had anyone been present to observe, they would have seen the two non-flyers swell and begin to change.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Starscream's optics came back online, and his internal chronometer told him that only a few seconds had passed since he had lost consciousness for some inexplicable reason.

The self-inflicted scratches on his hide were no longer hurting, he could only feel a cool, soothing sensation, and glancing over to one shoulder he noticed that the incised glyphs were filled with the blue-white light of the AllSpark's energy. As he watched, the energy receded, leaving nothing behind but unbroken armour. Then his optics went dark again.

His attention was diverted from his hide by a sensation that began to grow in his processors. It was the awareness of another, quickly joined by yet another, and they both strengthened and began to grow. At they did, he felt the pain of his loss transmit itself through the new bond to the two new presences, felt them recoil from it and then accept it, hurting as they did. He felt the pain of the two new presences, felt them feel, as he had, what it was like to feel two bonded to him die.

He felt their minds and Sparks flinch from the pain, then felt them mentally embrace him. Their presence did not replace the two he had lost, but he found himself finding the pain easier to bear. The accusing voices of Thundercracker and Skywarp receded, fading until they were no longer there. Instead, the two new minds were in their place, boiling with confusion.

Awareness of his body came back to him as a choked sob, partly of relief and partly of release, escaped his vocaliser. He could feel that he was not alone, arms were pressed around him, hands stroked him, wings brushed against armour, a face nuzzled his own. He put his own hands out and felt wings that were not his own.

His optics onlined again at that moment and as his hands grasped at the other wings wonderingly, stroking and feeling, he looked up into a silver face not unlike his own, with the most intense blue optics he'd seen possessed by any other mech except Optimus Prime. Looking the other way he found himself looking into a face both familiar but odd. The blue optics and rounded face were familiar to him, but it was the first time he'd seen Bumblebee with a mouth instead of a microphone, and surmounting the body of a yellow and black Seeker-form.

That explained the confusion, he realised, as he worked out that somehow the AllSpark, which must have been hiding in Sam, had converted the human and the scout into Seeker forms. There was only one reason he could see it would do that, for not only was he automatically bonded with them, but neither of them had suffered physical damage sufficient enough to require a change to survive. The only explanation had to be that the AllSpark had intervened to fulfil his own strict criteria, that any potential new bondmates had to be winged. Wonderingly, he realised that the AllSpark wanted him to live.

He reached out with his own mind, going from comforted to comforter, trying to soothe both minds, one - Sam's he guessed - being in a greater turmoil than the other, which he supposed made sense. Bumblebee had merely been converted from groundling to Seeker, only doubling in height, but Sam had changed species entirely, and was now about six times taller than he was used to.

He reached back out, putting one arm about each new Seeker, reassuring them both simultaneously, promising he would not put them through the pain of losing one who was bonded to them, that he would not now kill himself. For they needed him, he realised, to learn how to fly, and live, and interact in their new forms. If he killed himself, he would be inflicting a link-break on them, and Sam at least didn't even have a theoretical concept of that. They were, in many ways, like new winglets, he realised, and as such, he knew he had to care for and look after them.

He smiled ironically as he held them both against him, reassuring with words, feelings, thoughts and strokes. The AllSpark had given him another reason to live - no, _two _more reasons - even as he felt it reverse the madness the link-breakage had inflicted on him, felt it showing him that his survivor-guilt was not logical. Although they were adult in form, both were new to the air, and Sam was a winglet both in age and experience, adult body or not!

He finally managed to soothe them both, answering Sam and Bumblebee's barrage of questions about what had happened and why as best as he could. When he had finished, Sam spoke - or tried to.

It took him three attempts, but he finally found out how his vocaliser worked, a good sign, Starscream thought, that he would be able to learn other essential functions with little difficulty.

"Your wingbrothers." he managed to rasp out. "We should retrieve their bodies, and save their memory chips. We can keep their memories alive, we could, and should, do that."

Starscream nodded. "Not now, Sam. We need to get to somewhere you can rest, recover, and discuss what has happened to you as soon as we can," he explained. "I think I know of a place we can go." He shook free two data link leads from his wrists, dangling them in front of the optics of his new charges.

"We can, as you say, retrieve the bodies of my first wingbrothers." he stated. "It _is_ only fair and right. Although you are here, I will never forget them, and my grief will never completely go. Both of you can ease that and make it bearable, but you serve as new wingbrothers, not as replacements for the original two." He smiled and patted them both, to show that he did not mean this cruelly. Then he spoke again.

"However, before we do anything else, you two have to recharge, and then learn how to fly." He gave a smile of irony.

"It looks like I am to be your tutor in this."


End file.
